


Icarus

by Leryline



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NSFW, i wanted an excuse to write ushi crying, sue me lmao, ushioi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leryline/pseuds/Leryline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You were supposed to win!” His voice forces its way past his teeth and it’s guttural and vulgar and <i>violent</i> and he can feel it in each fibre of his body. His fingers burn where they touch Ushijima and he can’t seem to press himself close enough. He wants to squeeze all the air from Ushijima’s body, to skin him or flay him or crack him open or <i>something</i>  - anything, anything, just to make him feel. “I was supposed to beat you! I was supposed to verse you on that court! It was supposed to be <i>me</i>!"</p>
<p>As his voice rises from him in a howl he can feel the anger ride out like the tide until his tearing fingers beat weakly on Ushijima’s broad chest and he can’t even stand to <i>look</i> at him anymore, and so he turns his face away, pain grappling in his chest. Ushijima’s eyes are closed and his head rests against the wall, arms limp by his side and Oikawa wants to slap him. The setter’s voice is little more than a cracked whisper spoken against the neckline of Ushijima’s shirt. “You’ve got to feel <i>something</i>.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> hello, it's me, i love making myself sad
> 
> [this fic has been translated into russian! you can read it [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4348181)]

The only sound in the room is that of Oikawa’s teaspoon scraping along the bottom of his mug. The tea had gone cold by now, surely, the squeal of metal on ceramic creating a comforting hum like the cicadas in summer. Except this isn’t a happy comfort, not like the cicadas. Shiratorizawa had been defeated by Karasuno. Oikawa knows he should feel happy, but he doesn’t. He hates it.

“Stupid Ushiwaka…” he mumbles, long fingers twirling the spoon as he fixes his gaze on the same spot on the kitchen wall. His nose is stinging and his heart feels like a chunk of ice in his chest and he _hates_ it, oh, he hates it. But he can’t stop it.

Iwaizumi had gone home after the match. He’d noticed something strange in Oikawa’s countenance, a strange absence of the triumph he’d been expecting, as though he’d thought Oikawa would be happy to see Ushijima beaten. Which, you know, he _had_ been, for a little while. But the way Oikawa had stared at the ground with a little wrinkle between his brows had spoken nothing of satisfaction, only frustration. _How frustrating, Ushiwaka!_ Oikawa had kicked a stone and sent it skittering into the gutter, and Iwaizumi hadn’t heard him so quiet since their own team had fallen to Karasuno. Something was _off_ , and very decidedly so. When Iwaizumi had gently asked Oikawa if he’d like him to stay, the setter had snapped out of it and told him no, everything was fine.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

“Stupid! Ushiwaka is such a _clod!_ ” Oikawa huffed angrily, spoon dropping loudly onto the countertop. When his voice faded, silence hung heavier than he’d really ever imagined it. He’d been standing there replaying the match over and over again for almost an hour. The sky outside has grown dark, blue and dusky and tired, sapping the colour from everything Oikawa can see; he flicks on a few lights, and only upon opening a window does he realise that it had started to rain, the humidity hanging just as heavily in the air as the silence did. He breathes out a sigh of relief, quiet and lost in the sound of the thickening rain. He found solace in being alone like this, especially at times like these. His parents aren’t going to be home for another two days.

His appetite abandoned, Oikawa decides it’d be best to just have a shower and go to bed, but a knock at the door arrests him completely. Who on earth would be visiting at a time like this, in _this_ weather? Sheeting rain is hardly prime conditions for a social visit.

Stepping over his shoes in the vestibule by the door, he opened it, flicking on the light by the front door as he does so.

Out of all the things he was expecting, a frowning, soaked-to-the-bone Ushijima Wakatoshi was the absolute _last_ thing. Oikawa’s brow crumples reflexively. “Ushiwaka-chan, I didn’t know you knew where I lived. Are you stalking me?”

Ushijima doesn’t reply. He just stands there like some kind of big toddler, Oikawa thinks; hands balled into fists by his sides, hair hanging in his face and dripping into his eyes, expression fixed almost determinedly on Oikawa’s toes. Like a child. Oikawa’s frown deepens and he feels his lip curl, expression accented by a scoff. “Well, if you freeze to death I don’t want to be held responsible, so you’d better get inside before you die.” Oikawa holds open the door for him, pointedly refusing to acknowledge that it’s certainly _not_ cold. But just having Ushijima walking past him and over the threshold is enough to send Oikawa’s heart beating irregularly in his chest.

“What a crushing defeat, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa continues as Ushijima slowly removes his shoes and his jacket, folding it neatly and placing them out of the way. His lack of reply is annoying, but Ushijima has never been the type for witty comebacks. Oikawa sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair.

“They were… I did not understand them.” Ushijima’s voice is quiet, much like the thunder Oikawa heard in the distance earlier that evening. “I could not understand them.”

Oikawa flinches. Ushijima’s tone is expressionless - so is his face, his entire _being_ is completely unreadable. There’s no emotion, no frustration, no despair, and Oikawa hates it to the very marrow of his bones. It makes his veins shudder with rage that he can barely keep contained at the back of his throat - seeing Ushijima deal so cooly with a blow that had been so incredibly cruel to Oikawa makes him feel sick.

“Aren’t you upset? Even a little bit?” He’s speaking before he can stop himself, his tongue moved by little other than anger; usually Oikawa is more than happy to forget Ushijima exists, but now all he can think about is Ushijima, _Ushijima_ , who stands _inside_ his home dripping with cool rainwater and smelling of the earth. Oikawa tries to ignore how his voice shakes, and he clenches his fists behind his back where he know Ushijima won’t see them.

For the first time, Ushijima looks at him. It’s hard to see his eyes through the shadow cast by those strong brows of his, even more so by the hair that hangs over them; the bridge of his nose glistens, cheekbones slick still, and Oikawa averts his gaze immediately when he makes the mistake of seeing the flatness of Ushijima’s irises.

“No.”

Oikawa’s lip curls further, showing a glint of teeth; he’s enraged, but he won’t let it show. He never lets it show. But in the face of Ushijima’s indifference he’s reminded only of his own despair, his own sorrow when that ball had hit the court for the last time.

_The last time._

Suddenly Oikawa’s hands are fisted in the wet material of Ushijima’s shirt, shoving him back against the wall with force enough to dislodge a framed photograph, sending it smashing to the ground. Oikawa is enraged, eyes wild with the anger he’s barely able to contain. His teeth are bared like an animal and he knows all he’s doing is betraying himself and showing that even his emotional control is subpar to that of the Miracle Boy, but he doesn’t _care_. Not anymore.

“You were supposed to win!” His voice forces its way past his teeth and it’s guttural and vulgar and _violent_ and he can feel it in each fibre of his body. His fingers burn where they touch Ushijima and he can’t seem to press himself close enough. He wants to squeeze all the air from Ushijima’s body, to skin him or flay him or crack him open or _something_ \- anything, anything, just to make him feel. “I was supposed to beat you! I was supposed to verse you on that court! It was supposed to be _me_!”

As his voice rises from him in a howl, he can feel the anger ride out like the tide until his tearing fingers beat weakly on Ushijima’s broad chest and he can’t even stand to _look_ at him anymore. Ushijima’s eyes are closed and his head rests against the wall, arms limp by his side and Oikawa wants to slap him. The setter’s voice is little more than a cracked whisper spoken against the neckline of Ushijima’s shirt. “You’ve got to feel _something._ ”

Ushijima isn’t that much taller than him, but with his face tilted towards the ceiling it’s hard for Oikawa to see anything. He’s still so _angry_ \- his teeth still grind and his fists still tug at that shirt - and he’s desperate for something, anything. He just wants to see Ushijima feel. He needs it. But he still doesn’t reply.

“Icarus,” Oikawa breathes. “Your hubris has brought you down, hasn’t it? You flew too close to the sun, too close to Hinata Shouyou, and the wings you made for yourself melted. And now you’re here, right here in hell with the rest of us. Knocked off your pedestal. That can’t feel good.”

Ushijima’s eyes open and he looks down at Oikawa, face as infuriatingly composed as ever. But there is a tightness to it, Oikawa notices - the kind of tightness that makes his heart jump and his breath catch in his throat.

“Hubris?” Ushijima replies, and then he laughs a deep, solid laugh that makes Oikawa feel as though he’s plunged his hands into the earth. “You ought to know that I am not the one with issues in _hubris,_  Oikawa.”

Oikawa pushes Ushijima further against the wall, fists pressing harder against his chest. They’re so close Oikawa can _smell_ him. “You kept me humble, Ushiwaka-chan. Always did. And I hate you for it.”

They stand in silence, staring at each other through the half-darkness. Oikawa still can’t wrap his head around how strange it is to have Ushijima Wakatoshi in his house like this, but with everything else weighing on his mind, it’s the last thing he really wants to think about.

“It should have been you.”

“What?”

“You should have been on that court. With me. As my setter.”

“Don’t start this again -,”

“It was always you! It should have always been you!”

Oikawa is stunned into silence, the breath kicked from his lungs by the two strong hands that had suddenly grasped his shoulders. He’s never heard Ushijima raise his voice like that, and even though it wasn’t really a _shout_ , as such, it was still enough to rattle Oikawa’s bones. Big, hazel eyes blinked up at Ushijima’s face, still contorted by shadow and rainwater. But the fissures were beginning to show.

“If you were with me they would have lost. We would have beat them. All the arguing and bartering - was it worth it, Oikawa? Is this worth it?”

_No._ The thought of standing beside Ushijima and crushing Karasuno is far more attractive a thought that Oikawa would ever admit. “I’d never join you. We’ve been over this.” _I would._

“Even beating you would have been better.”

Oikawa’s laughter is bitter. “You’re no better than me, now. We both lost.” It feels so human standing here face-to-face with someone who had previously seemed so untouchable. Ushijima’s brow is furrowed, now, his shoulders set tightly and uncomfortably.

“It should have been you.”

“You’re angry.”

“It is our last year.”

“We’ll get more chances later -,”

“This was our last chance!”

Ushijima had yelled. His voice had risen to a cry and it made Oikawa’s entire body shiver with fear. As he’d expected - someone like Ushijima shouting was frightening.

“Why are you here?” Oikawa asked pointedly, not bothering to hide the venom in his voice.

“I needed -,” Ushijima’s voice broke, hitching in the back of his throat. Oikawa blinked in surprise. “I needed to see you. I was robbed of you today and that is not something I will easily forgive. I had to see you somehow.”

Oikawa’s mouth is dry. Ushijima is a big person, but Oikawa doesn’t realise just how heavy he is until the ace is leaning on him, suddenly unable to support his weight on his own two legs. Somehow they end up in the living room, sitting on the couch at a modest distance, Ushijima staring down at his hands. The room is only quiet, the rain thinning out to little more than a drizzle.

“You don’t -,” Oikawa’s snide remark stalls in his throat as he hears a sound so foreign and so unexpected his muscles seize; he looks over to Ushijima, eyes wide and brows raised, to see his broad shoulders hunched and hands smothering his face. Ushijima’s palms are pressed to his eyes and even through the tangle of thick fingers Oikawa can see the contortion of his lips, the tightness of his jaw and the flash of teeth. It’s a mess he clearly recognises.

Ushijima is crying.

Oikawa sits, dumbstruck, as he watches. Seeing Ushijima cry is like seeing the green flash over the ocean: a spectacle witnessed only by the lucky few. But this is far more devastating and far less satisfying than Oikawa thought it would be; there is nothing satisfying about despair, not even Ushijima’s, and seeing him sitting there with his shoulders wracking with sobs did nothing but make Oikawa feel oddly heavy. The sound of Ushijima crying was one of a sputtering storm, each sob a roll of thunder that contains three times the amount of pain Oikawa’s own sobs ever did. He can feel that pain and it reminds him of his own.

“I hate it.” Ushijima’s voice bites through the distance between them. “I was robbed of you. They shouldn’t have won. I failed.”

For once, Oikawa doesn’t have a reply.

 

The distance between them slowly becomes shorter. Oikawa, as much as he hates to admit it, feels a little guilty about sitting by doing nothing while Ushijima is sitting beside him finally coming to terms with exactly what had happened on the court earlier that day. At one point Ushijima takes Oikawa’s long, limber hand and presses the knuckles to his swollen eyes, splays the fingers and strokes the palm and the line of the wrist. Oikawa lets him, appreciating (only slightly, he assures himself) the touch of rough calluses and warm skin. Soon he’s the one pushing the hair back from Ushijima’s face, pitying him openly, taking tissues and cleaning up the strangely endearing mess that is Ushijima Wakatoshi’s face after the tears stop flowing. He notices how tired Ushijima looks for the first time - after a match of that caliber and an array of punishment drills afterwards _on top of_ emotional backlash, who could blame him?

Oikawa’s hands, once they feel Ushijima’s face, betray Oikawa and fail to leave the skin. Where there had once been angry remarks or snide comments on his lips there is now only the firm, assuring line of Ushijima’s teeth, the touch of hot breath against his cheek that makes Oikawa shiver as though he’s cold. _It should have been you._ Oikawa can’t remember when he slid into Ushijima’s lap, cradling his head against his chest as they shared that foreign, intimate moment.

_It should have always been you._

Their pain was not independent. Where they had stood apart they now stand together, and for the first time in his life Oikawa Tōru finds himself not only _sympathising_ with this man, but empathising with him. Here he is stroking his hair and the back of his neck as though Ushijima had never made him cry or work himself to exhaustion.

_It should have been you._

* * *

“It should have been you,” Ushijima moans into Oikawa’s neck, voice muffled as the setter wrenches off his shirt. “You should have been with me. I could have taken you to nationals.”

“Stop talking,” Oikawa mumbles, but he doesn’t mean it, not really. The thought is too good to pass up, and his imagination feeds on it. He directs Ushijima’s flushed lips back to his own anyway - he likes hearing his voice, certainly, but he prefers kissing him more. Which is never something Oikawa would have _ever_ thought he’d think. But reality barely seems feasible any more, so he doesn’t see why he should care. Besides - Ushijima knows what to do with his hands, so much so that Oikawa begins to wonder if he’s ever done it before.

Having sex with Ushijima was the last thing Oikawa planned to do. But it’s so rare for Oikawa to feel pain this deeply, to have his dreams robbed from right in front of him - in a way, having both of them lose to Karasuno is worse than if Seijō had merely lost to Shiratorizawa as they always had.

OIkawa tries to tell himself he hates it, that he hates Ushijima and Shiratorizawa and _everything_ , and that nothing has changed. He knows he can’t cheat himself like this forever, but he clings to ignorance for as long as he can. He doesn’t hate it, though. Ushijima sits between his legs like a child, his face cracked open like a fissure, eyes wild and expression angry and sad and broken. His hands shake on Oikawa’s thighs and each orgasm is torn from both of them, knocking the air from their lungs and sending them further into each other.

“It should have been you.” Ushijima presses the words to Oikawa’s skin with dry sobs still heaving his form.

Oikawa pulls his fingers through Ushijima’s hair, needing very much to feel _all_ of him, because he knows that once this is over there’ll be no going back. “I know,” he says, voice a whisper stumbling along Ushijima’s lower lip. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> ps i apologise for this terrible excuse of a fic my meds are kicking my ass right now & i think i lost the plot 1.6k words in  
> pps i havent caught up in the manga yet so ¯\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯


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